2/21/14

AMAZE - 19 - This was one week?

......I really overdid myself this time. Nothing like a hard deadline to get me working, I suppose!

Changelog:

Made trigger responses act like other scripts, and obey delays.

Added an argument to make spawned objects be placed relative to the object that spawned them.

Finished Zone 2.

Created sprites for cannons and cannonballs.

Fixed a bug where respawning in a different area could leave you with the wrong tileset.

Made the ingame fonts less squiggly.

Remade the sprite for spikes.

Remade the sprite for level exits. Not sure I like it though.

Added a script conditional that lets objects get more information about what they've hit.

Made a sprite for doors that open from switches rather than keys.

Remade the progress indicator in the main hub.

Made a special sprite for zone entrances.

Added doors to the hub. Zones must now be completed in order, but you can replay a cleared zone.

Started reworking the title screen.

Added ice, which causes objects to slide around.

Made all of Zone 3.

Fixed a glitch where some tiles didn't act correctly on load.

Fixed a glitch where starting a new game after loading a save gave you some extras.

Added some text at the start of a level indicating that you need to hit space to begin.

Updated the credits to include the names of the libraries I use.

Made the title screen a bit less atrocious.

In addition to all of this, I've made some major cuts to the game's scope. I was worried about the eventual length of the game for a long time. Originally, when I started on the hub setup, I'd intended for well over 100 levels. I found pretty quickly that this was going to be too much, so I limited the game to one hub, with 7 areas and 75 levels total. As I spent time on Zone 2, though, I realized something: I'm really starting to get tired of this game. I think the biggest problem is that the engine is still very annoying to work with, even after all this time. The best way to fix this would involve massive amounts of work-I'll pretty much have to rewrite the whole thing to get it in a state I like. I can't do this while I'm in the middle of a game, though. I found myself stuck in a loop, where I didn't want to finish the game until I'd done something that couldn't be done until I finished the game. After talking to friends about the problem, and pondering it myself, I made a decision. First, the number of areas was reduced to 5. Second, each area will only have 5 levels each, not 10. This brings the number of levels down to a far more manageable 30. Almost immediately after this decision, I found myself much more energetic and I've since pumped out not only the rest of Zone 2 but Zone 3 as well! This puts me at around two-thirds done now. I've got one more 'themed' area, and then it's the final levels. I've put up the newest build on the Games Page!